


Shades of Infinite Gray

by twistedchick



Series: Upon This Rock [3]
Category: Highlander: The Raven
Genre: Gen, Immortal training, New Immortal
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-11-23
Updated: 2009-11-23
Packaged: 2017-10-03 16:24:40
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 18,956
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20059
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/twistedchick/pseuds/twistedchick
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Nick Wolfe wakes up Immortal, his world changes and he must find ways to change with it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Shades of Infinite Gray

**Author's Note:**

> This takes place in the same universe as A Question of Honor, a year or so later.

Nick Wolfe stumbled through the alley in the darkness. The rats, denizens of their own kind of darkness, knew enough to stay out of his way. He wove through the streets, half-dazed by the thoughts he couldn't shake, the knowledge that had burst upon him and changed his life irrevocably.

Life and death. Death and life, Immortal life -- a life of which he'd seen all too much in the past year. What was Immortality, after all, but a refuge for thieves, con men and villains? What future could he, with his police-grounded ideas of right and wrong, have in such a world? Better to die now than to have to live by taking heads, as Amanda did.

He'd begun to love her even before he learned to trust her, soon after they met. It went against his grain, loving a thief, but she was so much more than that. He'd even begun to think they might have a future, however brief and circumscribed by his own short mortal life.

But that was already in the past.

***

It took only five minutes to pack the essentials in a rucksack and head out. He tucked the last photo he had of Lauren into the bag; he hesitated but his hand reached out without his willing it to take a small picture of Amanda as well. Not the large one of the two of them, but a miniature he'd found in an antique shop, painted on ivory by an artist a century ago who'd captured the fleeting vulnerability in her smile.

It made no sense. He couldn't love her any more. How could he afford to love anyone if he'd have to kill them in that senseless Game that Immortals played? Lemmings, all of them, drawn to a sword's edge instead of a high cliff, and with the same chance of survival.

Just another lemming, now. He'd have to acquire a sword if he wanted to live.

But who wanted to live?

A thought came to him, unbidden -- holy ground. He wasn't religious, but he knew Immortals respected holy ground of any sect as neutral territory. Maybe he should go there to think.

The closest holy ground lay under the building itself, in the Crypt de Ste. Marie in the sewers. Too close, and he didn't know the tunnels well enough. But there were many churches in Paris. It wouldn't hurt to stop at one of them for a few minutes, for luck if not for prayer.

***

Amanda sat by the bar, staring into her glass of bordeaux. She wished she'd started drinking whiskey right off, when she'd arrived back at an empty building at 3 a.m., but she'd been drinking red wine steadily for hours and it had no visible effect on her. If she'd started with the whiskey, at least she'd be drunk now and losing Nick wouldn't hurt as much, for a while.

But she still felt she needed to be awake, or capable of action. Just in case someone called.

However unlikely.

A light footstep on the stairs made her look up, full of anticipation. When she saw her old friend Peter Taff enter the room, she tried not to look as disappointed as she felt.

"Here, here, what's this? Drinking alone at this hour, and it's not even the anniversary of the battle of Agincourt!" Peter Taff chided her gently. Taffy the Welshman, Taffy the thief from the old nursery rhyme, who had known her for six hundred years. Half her lifetime, maybe a tenth of his own as Methos. He'd seen her in and out of danger, lived with her, worked and played with her, and let her go when he'd come to the limit of his abilities and retreated into the shadows to watch the Game pass him by.

In six centuries he hadn't seen her this upset, this hurt. He sat on the adjoining barstool and leaned toward her. "Are you all right?" She shook her head, unable to speak. "Where's Nick? I need to borrow back that book on the history of jurisprudence for one of my grad students."

"Oh, Taffy. He's gone."

"Gone?" The oldest man in Paris sat back in his chair. "What do you mean, gone?" Another thought struck him. "Gone as in ... permanently?"

She turned tragic brown eyes toward him. "I don't know."

"Wait a minute." Hazel eyes met brown with comprehension. "He died --"

Amanda nodded slowly.

"-- and woke up Immortal --"

"It was slow poison. I couldn't let him go like that, I just couldn't. He was in such pain," she whispered. "And it would have been forever."

"So you helped him along." He put an arm around her shoulders. "Any of us might do that. It's the kindest thing under the circumstances, not letting someone you care about suffer unnecessarily."

"But he didn't see it that way." She leaned her head on his shoulder, and he felt her short hair like clipped silk against his neck. "When he came to, he told me he'd rather be dead than be an Immortal like me. He said I'd stolen his choice of how to die from him, and he left."

Methos whistled low. "Definitely annoyed. Not a good thing for a new Immortal. Has he ever used a sword?"

"Once, or twice, in anger. He has no skill." Her tears were coming fast now, and her nose was turning red. "He doesn't see our long life as a gift but a curse. He wouldn't forgive me for shooting him."

"Well, he's new; you can't expect mature reactions from a child." He rocked her in his arms.

"When I got back, his clothes and personal things were gone. Everything else is there, your book too as far as I know."

He dismissed the book with a wave of his hand. "What are you going to do?"

She rubbed her face with her hands and shuddered, once. Lifting her head from his shoulder, she said, "I have absolutely no idea."

***

"Nick?" Liam thought his eyes were wrong, but there he was, hunched in the second pew on the left.

"Liam." Nick attempted a smile but it didn't make it past his lips. "You said you owed me breakfast for that last basketball game."

"I do." Liam's eyes widened as he came closer and heard the distinctive tone of Immortality in his mind -- this time the moan of a deep-voiced wood flute. Each Immortal's sound was unique. "It's happened, then."

Nick's anger flared. "Why couldn't she tell me? Why didn't you tell me? Don't I get a choice about how I die?"

Liam's voice was gentle. "Few people ever get that choice, lad. Are you sure it's breakfast you're here for?"

Or sanctuary. Or revenge.

Nick regretted his temper, but not much. He was in too much pain and wanted to spread some of it around. "I'm not about to become a monk, if that's the question."

"Part of it." Liam leaned a hip against the pew Nick sat in, and noticed the rucksack next to him. "You're leaving, then?" Nick didn't answer. "Better have something to eat and drink first. It can be a long, cold road out there."

***

"Will you be in Paris for a while?" Amanda asked Methos. He'd persuaded her to put some food in with all that wine, and she'd agreed eventually. He'd considered cooking something for her there, but his presence would underline Nick's absence; instead, he took her to a cafe he liked, one he knew she seldom visited.

"Probably. I'll keep an eye out for him, but I doubt he'll show." He toyed with the handle of his coffee cup. "If I do run across him, is there anything you'd like me to say?"

She shook her head. "Whatever seems appropriate to you at the time. He's determined to find his own way -- or not."

"It's remarkably difficult for Immortals to commit suicide," he mused. "I've known very few who succeeded."

Amanda nodded. "But a few do, the creative ones -- and he's creative."

He nodded. "You know, it's too bad MacLeod is off in the Himalayas. We could probably use the Boy Scout right about now." He waited as the waiter refilled his and Amanda's cups. "It's occurred to me that Nick hasn't met a lot of good Immortals, if you know what I mean."

"You think that's it?" Her eyes widened. "He thinks only thieves and villains survive? How can he think that? He's met you, and Michelle, and Millie --"

"And none of us would do well under the scrutiny of any half-competent police department. Like it or not, Amanda, the man is still a cop. He protects the innocent; what's he to do when he can't even feel he's innocent any more?"

"Suicide. Gods." Amanda went paper-white under her skin, her eyes huge. "Do you think we should call Joe and ask him who's hunting around here..."

"I don't know. Joe can be too perceptive at times, and he's met Nick." He raised his eyebrows and she shook her head.

"He didn't hear it from me. Michelle's met Joe once and thought he was a bit of an old fogey; she wouldn't talk to him. And I doubt that Millie would go to the trouble of coming out from the underground long enough to talk to Joe unless he had something she really wanted. But she liked Nick. Maybe --"

"Worth a try." Methos reached into his coat for a cellphone and punched in the numbers. "Joe? It's Peter Taff. Listen, have you a line on where Millie might be? Something's come up that I think she might be interested in. ... No, nothing like that ... Well, if she calls Mariellen, would you let her know I'd like to talk to her for a few minutes? Thanks." He slipped the phone back into a pocket. "Millie calls her sister once a month, and she's supposed to call in a few days. It's the best I can do."

"Thanks." She drank some coffee and started to shred the last uneaten croissant into fragments with her fingertips, occasionally nibbling on a crumb or two. "I keep trying to think of someone who could teach him the good side of our life, someone he'd respect, and I'm not coming up with much. Too many are dead, and the others are either retired or not taking new students. Rebecca would have taken him on, if she were still here, and he would've learned from her." The fragments fell on her skirt and she brushed them away. "He even learned a few things from me."

He nodded. "Or Robert and Gina, but they've got students of their own. I don't see either Connor or Duncan as possibilities. He's too much like them already."

"Who's left? Darius is dead. Liam hasn't fought in centuries. And you already have a student -- Michelle."

His smile was crooked. "No, Amanda, you have a student named Michelle. I have a teacher named Michelle. And I'm hardly a poster child for The Good and Moral Immortal."

"Touché." She tried to smile. "I don't want to chase him or follow him around -- oh, he'd hate that." The smile faded. "I don't want to let the Watchers know about him. I don't want to have him die and not know whose head I'll have to take."

"What if he does manage to kill himself? He's resourceful."

"I don't know." Her voice sounded desolate. "Maybe it's time for me to make an end as well."

***

"Seems to me that you've got several possibilities to choose from." Liam leaned back in his chair, in the largely unused rectory kitchen he'd taken over when he arrived at the church. He ticked them off on his fingers. "You could become a monk, or priest, and stay on Holy Ground the rest of your life. I wouldn't recommend a friar, as they tend to move about a mite too much for safety."

"Can you see me becoming celibate for life? Even a mortal life?" Nick's eyebrows rose.

Liam shrugged. "No, but what I see isn't what matters, is it?" He ticked the second finger. "You could go back to the cafe and take up your life as it has been with no changes. Put off making any decisions for a while, continue to work as you wish."

Nick shook his head, his face grim. "I don't want to see Amanda."

Liam watched the lines in Nick's face deepen whenever Amanda's name was mentioned. "Do you love her, Nick?"

Nick moved restlessly and looked away. "Peter asked me that, a while back, and I said yes. Now I don't know any more. She killed me."

"I'd say she loves you a lot, to be willing to save you pain by easing your end."

"Easing me into Immortality, you mean." He choked on his clashing emotions. "How can I let myself love her when I'll have to face her over a sword later on, for the sake of this Game? There can't be love among Immortals."

"Oh, I wouldn't know about that. What of Peter Taff and young Michelle?"

Nick grimaced up at the ceiling. "She's just a kid. She'll tire of him, and go on to someone else, and he'll find someone else, too."

"Tell me how that's any different from what goes on in that bar across the square, every night? And they may stay together for decades -- or centuries. Immortality isn't always the kiss of death for lovers, Nick. Stubbornness and bad timing take far more of a toll." Liam decided that a little dose of reality might help. "I know half a dozen Immortal couples, happily married, some of them for centuries. Yes, 'til death do us part.' Just because the Game exists doesn't mean that you will inevitably have to behead every Immortal you ever meet. It does mean that the good should win against the evil, and there are evil Immortals -- but not all of them. And you're not bound by honor or anything else to fight every battle you face."

"Maybe." Nick moved irritably in his chair. "What other options are there?"

"You could go into the underground -- live the life of an Immortal who has no legal standing or ability to live in the light of day. Personally, I think that would be a waste. Nobody's seen you dead except Amanda, so you needn't hide out."

Nick considered this. "What else?"

"Find a teacher. Learn to fight with a sword, learn the rules of the game, not just what you've picked up from those of us you've met." Liam thought a moment, then said, "If you were more of a hedonist, I think you'd already have done that."

"Why?" Hedonism and the Game didn't seem to exist in the same sentence, let alone the same life.

"Think on this, then -- all your life you can do anything you want, take any pleasure, and never really suffer. Oh, if you become a drug addict you'll go through the same hell as anyone else, but you won't die of it. You can't catch syphilis or gonorrhea or AIDS, and you can't be a carrier for them either. You can make love to any woman you want who will have you -- or any man, if that's your fancy -- and never fear the consequences."

"No children, then, either." Nick's long face grew longer. "Lauren and I couldn't have them, and we thought it was something to do with her. Maybe it was me."

"Maybe not. The evidence is divided; some Immortals may have sired or borne children before their first death, but none have afterward. It's thought the Quickening burns out that ability, though not the pleasurable prelude." Liam smiled ruefully. "That's one of the reasons I've stayed on Holy Ground when I could; the temptations against chastity after taking a Quickening are far too strong even for me to resist."

Nick stared at him, feeling a shiver of memory trail down his spine: the memory of Amanda in his bed, making love tirelessly after she'd returned from a duel. At the time, he'd thought it was the biological imperative that mortals felt after surviving great danger; perhaps it was hard-wired into Immortals as well. He remembered every touch, every kiss, the silk of her hair and the velvet of her skin against his, the little whimpers she'd make --

"What else?" he said gruffly.

Liam hadn't missed the slow flush ebbing across Nick's face. "You could just take to the road, take your chances, and let the first Immortal who comes along headhunting take you down. Personally, I think that's a waste of your gift."

"You still think this is a gift?"

"Every day we wake up alive is a gift, Nick. Every day you have the chance to appreciate the world around you is a gift. Ask Peter Taff sometime about that woman he loved who died a few years ago; he'd tell you the same thing."

"But it's not a gift to me, Liam. It's a prison sentence. Endless long days, with no escape. Mortal life is brief, it's precious, you cram as much living as you can into it. Stretch it to infinity -- is it still valuable? Or so watered-down it doesn't matter?" Nick pushed away his plate with its uneaten last slice of toast and bite of eggs. "I want to know there's an end."

"Do you want me to answer theologically or plainly?"

"Whatever." Nick took his cup in both hands and stared into its shallow depth.

"In good theology, I'd say that we are made to love one another and care for one another, whatever the length of our lives, whatever our circumstances."

"That's fine for saints. How about for real people?"

Liam sighed. There was no reasoning with Nick in some moods, any more than there ever was with Amanda. "In plain talk, I'd say that you're a babe newborn and you don't even know what you are yet. You've got to start all over again to learn how life works and how it's lived, and you're yelling like a toddler with a kacky diaper because things aren't what you expected. You don't even know what you can do yet and you want to give it all up. Seems pretty short-sighted to me."

***

Nick waved farewell to the trucker who'd given him a lift, and walked down toward the villa in the midst of the vineyards. Maybe he'd find work here for a while, enough to get him a little more travel money, while he tried to sort things out.

A large man in work clothes stopped unloading heavy sacks from a truck as he approached. He looked to be about sixty, but as hardened by labor and time as the tall oaks that shaded him. "May I help you, m'sieu?"

"I'm looking for work, if you have anything available."

The man looked him over. "What can you do? Have you any experience with grapes, or vines?"

Nick shook his head. "No, but when I was younger I worked on my uncle's farm in the summers. I imagine the heavy work is not much different for grapes than it is for fruit trees -- fertilizer, picking, pruning."

"Hmph." The man looked him over, head to foot. Nick wished he'd had a shower; he felt a little itchy from the long ride, but he knew he looked strong and he hoped he looked honest. "You have a drivers' license? Good. You're hired." He looked Nick over again. "You're about the same size as my oldest son; you can borrow his spare work clothes until you get your own. Go in the house and tell Marija you're the new workman I've hired, and she'll show you where your room is and get you the clothes." He put a hand out. "I'm Theo Garibaldi, manager of Estate Herbert."

Nick shook his hand. "Nicholas Wolfe."

***

He'd forgotten how good it felt to do physical work well, to feel the movement of muscle over bone within the body and the blood pumping and know that what he did contributed to creating something necessary and worthwhile. He worked the rest of the day hauling bags of fertilizer to put around the bases of tender young vines, slinging the bags onto and off the three-wheeled truck that fitted between the trellises and moving the fertilizer into place with a long-handled hoe. By sunset he felt tired but more like himself than he had since -- since -- he wouldn't think about that now.

He showered, ate the evening meal with Theo and Marija and their younger son, Philippe, who was curious about him but polite. After supper he went off to his room to sleep, but someting Liam had said kept annoying him, buzzing in the back of his mind like an obnoxious little insect.

You don't even know what you can do yet, and you want to give it all up.

What could he do now that he couldn't do before, other than stay alive indefinitely?

He'd been given a small, spotless set of rooms in the old servants' quarters, in a separate building that had been converted from a carriage house about a century ago; it was off beyond a few trees, behind the main villa. Another smaller, older stone villa stood in the next field, beyond the farm pond he could see glinting in the moonlight in the window.

Quietly he walked out on the porch, watching the moon hover over the farm pond. Idly, he wondered what that moon would look like from underwater. He knew the pond was clean enough; Philippe had been swimming in it when he'd arrived in early afternoon. The air was cooler now but the water temperature should still be pleasantly warm. He walked down the narrow moonlit path, shed his clothes when he was out of sight of the house, walked out on the pier and climbed down the ladder into the water.

He gasped. It was colder than he expected, especially on parts that had been inside several layers of clothing as he worked. After a moment or two, though, the spring water felt like satin on his skin. The pond felt deep enough for real swimming, not just paddling, so he pushed off and swam out into the middle for his experiment.

He did a surface dive to put himself underwater, and looked up at the moon -- oh, it was beautiful when seen from below, the light rippling on the surface over his head. Without really thinking about it he tried to breathe water; if he choked he could always come up to the surface quickly enough to empty his lungs and gasp for air.

But he didn't have to. He could stand there calmly on the bottom of the pond, his toes enmeshed in mud and reeds, and watch the fish swim around and above himself, and not think about breathing.

It didn't matter if there was water in his lungs. It didn't matter if there was only water in his lungs. He wasn't drowning. He couldn't drown.

Maybe Liam had a point.

He was mulling this over as he started to feel a headache, so he came back to the surface, exhaled water, coughed once, gulped air and swam toward the pier with a smooth overhand stroke. The headache felt worse; perhaps this underwater thing was something he'd have to do gradually. He'd always wanted to go scuba diving, and had never found time for the training.

When he pulled himself up onto the water, the cause of his headache was sitting calmly next to his clothes, her shawl pulled comfortably around her shoulders and her heavy walking stick in her hand. Her silver hair shone in the moonlight, but the light gentled many of the wrinkles he knew would be on her face by day. Her face reminded him of a portrait of Georgia O'Keefe.

"Good evening, madame," he said politely, feeling as ridiculous as any other man caught unexpectedly naked and dripping in front of an unknown woman.

"Good evening," she returned. "It's a bit cool for swimming, but I see you've taken no harm from it." Her voice sounded amused. "You're new, aren't you?"

"I arrived this afternoon, madame." Was he supposed to bow? He made do with a nod.

"Oh, yes, you're the new man." Her amused look swept over him. "You haven't been one of us very long, have you?"

The headache; what Michelle called the buzz. "A couple of days."

"That explains much." She came to her feet, fairly smoothly, and poked at his clothing with her walking stick. "The young ones always try to drown themselves first, until they realize it's no use. And you haven't found a sword you like yet, I see."

He started to shiver a little, and it wasn't all from the cool air on his skin. "Are you challenging me, madame? Shouldn't we be introduced first?"

She laughed. "I have no need to challenge you; you have nothing I would want. Besides, I value two things, privacy and convenience. Taking your head would rid me of both of them quickly; even a newborn's Quickening would take out the electricity just when we've gotten the estate rewired. No, my child, you are not worth the trouble." She moved aside slowly. "By all means, do put your clothes on. For all our immunities, the common cold has not been eradicated among us. It would be a pity if you were to catch one now."

He pulled on his clothes as quickly as possible, still feeling ridiculous. As soon as he was clothed, he put out his hand to her. "I'm Nicholas Wolfe, madame."

"So I see. A lone wolf, at that." She was still laughing a little to herself. "You will have to allow age its privileges; it's not often that I watch some Adonis arise from my pond by moonlight." She shook her head. "Oh, if I were only a thousand years younger. Where are my manners?" Taking his hand, she said, "I am Jolie Herbert, owner of these estates."

"A thousand years?" He was stunned, no doubt about it. Weren't all Immortals supposed to be young fighters, staying alive by any means possible? How many of them could be as old as ... no, he wasn't going to think of her.

"A thousand years," she said firmly, tucking his hand under her elbow. "You may walk me back to my home, and tell me a little about yourself."

His wits spun. Within seconds of meeting him she knew far more about him than he wanted to let anyone know. "There's not that much to tell."

"Oh, I think there may be something of value. You know of us, certainly; from whom?"

No way around it. "Amanda Montrose, for one. Liam Riley. A few others."

"Ah, Amanda. Where is she now?"

He wished he hadn't said her name. Her face appeared before him in his mind, laughing, arguing, serious, and ultimately silent as she watched him leave her. "In Paris, I think. Father Liam has a church there, also."

"And you don't wish to talk of either of them. Very well. If you know Amanda and her friends, you may know quite a bit of one side of our life -- but you don't know it all."

"I'm not sure I wish to know it all, Madame Herbert."

"Call me Jolie -- we are equals, as it is."

"Madame Jolie." He was going to be respectful if it killed him. Or, because it might keep him from being killed by someone with old-fashioned manners.

"Oh, very well," she sighed. "You're a stubborn man. Did Amanda tell you that also?"

"I've been told that for years." He hesitated, then said, "Did anyone tell you I was coming?"

"No. Should they?"

He shook his head.

They had reached the front door to the old stone cottage in the herb garden between the house and the second field. "Thank you for walking me back. Old bones sometimes grow tired in the evening damp."

"Forgive me -- but --"

"Yes?"

"If I may ask -- doesn't Immortality heal things like that?"

Jolie shrugged. "If you acquire it young, it heals everything. I was seventy-five when it came to me, and it does help with the rheumatism, but that doesn't mean I live without pain all the time." She patted his hand. "I will see you tomorrow, Nicholas, for your first lesson."

Seventy-five? And she was still alive after a thousand years?

What did she mean, lesson?

"But I'm working for Theo in the fields --"

"I will remind Theo that I need someone to drive me into town. He will not object; he would rather stay here tending the vines, and you can always spread composted sheep manure around the last hectare later on."

"Whatever you say." He found himself bowing to her; he couldn't really stop himself. "Good night, Madame Jolie."

"Good night, Nicholas."

***

"Madame wishes you to drive her into town this afternoon, Nicholas," Theo told him over lunch, his voice slightly questioning.

"I couldn't sleep last night, so I went for a walk." It was the truth, mostly.

Theo nodded, satisfied. "Madame walks often at night. I am pleased you were able to walk with her; she is elderly and I sometimes worry that she would break an ankle on her long walks and we would not know to help her."

"She seems quite healthy for her age," Nick said. "Do you want me to pick up anything for you while I'm in town?"

"Healthy? Too healthy, and may she always be thus even if she wears us out. I'll give you a list. You might pick up some work clothes for yourself; do you need an advance on your wages? No? Good. If you wish to open a bank account and need a reference, go to the Bank of Provence and tell the manager you work for me."

***

"You don't ask me questions," Jolie said after they'd driven silently for five minutes. Her aged Mercedes ran perfectly, for which Nick was thankful; he didn't assume his expertise with motorcycles would transfer well to this elegant craft.

"I assume that if you want me to know something about yourself, you will tell me."

"Faugh! What kind of logic is that? If you want to know something, ask."

He might as well. "All right. In what year did you turn seventy-five?"

She started to smile. "A little more polite than asking me my age directly. Regardless of calendar reforms, it was -- let me see -- shall I just say it was well before the age of Charlemagne? One loses track occasionally of the numbers."

Gods. She was older than Amanda. "You don't show your age, Madame."

"Yes, I do. But it goes away much more quickly in the company of young men." She shot him a glance that made him swallow hard. "Frankness is one of the privileges of age. Besides, I was born a Frank. Did you ever hear of a man named Darius?"

Darius. Both Amanda and Methos had mentioned him. "Wasn't he a priest or a monk?"

Jolie nodded. "In recent years he took the cloth, and kept to holy ground. But not always. He was once a general, leader of a great army that marched across Europe and took what it wished. Whatever it wished." She seemed lost in memory for a moment. "I was his concubine; we never married officially."

"What happened to change that?"

"Paris." She stared out the window at the green hillsides. "He was angry when the army reached Paris, that winter. We had been marching hungry; even Darius and I kept to one small bowl from the common pot each day, so all the soldiers would know we had no special food put aside. It was a hard winter; the deer ate saplings to the ground, and the wolves came across the frozen rivers to attack us from desperation for they, too, starved. And Paris still had grain and meat but refused to share. Darius ordered the army to assault the city and put anyone who resisted to the sword. Before the army could attack, the gates opened and an old man came out, the oldest of our kind who lived then. He was a holy man, and he fell to his knees before Darius to plead for the lives of those in the city. Darius ignored him. He stabbed him and took his head." She paused and turned to look at him. "You've seen a Quickening, I presume."

He nodded. "A couple."

"The older and more experienced one is when killed, the stronger and more powerful the Quickening that is released. Darius was knocked off his horse by it -- the horse was killed. The army panicked and ran away. I ran toward him, and the lightning knocked me down as well. It lit the sky and set fire to the gates. When it was over, I crawled to him to take him in my arms -- I knelt on the frozen mud in the finery my general had given me, and held his poor body -- and he stirred. His eyes opened, and he reached up to touch my face. When he got to his feet, he told his officers there would be no battle, no plunder. Food would be given to them, but then they would have to leave. He laid his sword in the mud, and walked away into the city."

To hear her speak, Nick thought, it sounded as if it had happened only a handful of years ago. "What did you do then?"

"Went after him, of course. I was his, body and soul; he had bought me and he couldn't just abandon me. I couldn't believe he would change like that." She shook her head. "But he did. Just like that. He gave me whatever I wanted of his goods, set me up in a house of my own as a merchant, and later on helped me to buy a little land -- here. It looked a bit different then, of course."

"And he stayed in Paris?"

"He became a monk in the local religion -- it was an early form of Christianity, combined with other things that everyone has forgotten since then -- and after a time nobody remembered that he'd been a general, and my lover. You wouldn't believe it now, but he paid a hundred trained horses to my father for me -- a tremendous price, when a trained horse was worth the lives of a dozen fighting men."

He was concentrating too hard on his driving, even if it was an unfamiliar road.

"This is all strange to you, isn't it?"

"I feel as if I'd fallen through Alice's looking-glass," he admitted.

"Do you believe me?"

He nodded. "You've no reason to lie to me, and your voice has the sound of truth in it."

"Good." She seemed to settle herself. "Now it's your turn, and you have no reason to lie to me."

Caught. He sighed. "How much?"

"As you will. But no lies."

So he told her -- about his life as a cop, and his hopes, and his failed marriage. He told her how he'd met Amanda, and why he'd followed her to Paris. He told her about some of the cases they'd worked on together, and some -- but not all --of the Immortals he'd met, and she nodded, silent. Then, slowly, he told her about the past three days, when he'd gone from one life to another in the flash of a pistol's shot.

"And now?"

"I don't know," he admitted. "Part of me wants to end it all; but I'm starting to be curious about Immortality."

"If you mean to live, you will have to be trained. Have you ever held a sword?"

Nick nodded. "I've taken one head, someone who was about to kill Amanda. I didn't enjoy it."

"You are taught to fight on others' account, as a policeman. That doesn't require you to enjoy it. Neither does this. Do you think taking a Quickening is supposed to be enjoyable?"

"Some Immortals seem to enjoy it."

"Junkies." Jolie dismissed them with a wave of her hand. "Dissipated Quickening junkies. Jackals, feeding off the young and weak, and the old and defenseless. They cannot win if they face anyone of normal skill and strength."

They had reached the village, and he parked the car near the bank, as she requested. "How vulnerable are you, Madame?"

"Not as vulnerable as you are -- I do know what to do with a sword." Her smile was swift and devastating. "Do you recall the history of the modern Olympic games?"

"Starting in France, about a century ago?"

She nodded gravely. "I trained the gold medalist in fencing. He was my student. No, not an Immortal, but a good boy who was fast and clever and not afraid to listen to what an old woman told him. Oh, I wasn't his official trainer -- but since I trained that one also, I suppose I could take some credit."

***

"At least we know he had a good breakfast," Methos said thoughtfully, as Liam finished speaking.

"And he hasn't killed himself yet," Amanda added.

"I don't know that he will, actually. I sent him down toward Provence; he said something about wanting to work with his hands for a while because it gave him time to think." Liam extended his glass and Methos refilled it with a rare single-malt. "And then I prayed that the right thing would happen."

"Provence." Methos mused. "Nothing much down there except vineyards. Very quiet. Good place to go and think for a while."

"Tres jolie," Liam said, with a hopeful expression.

Methos spun on his chair. "By all the gods, she's still alive?"

"Still running her land like a private fiefdom. I haven't a clue how she's managed to reinvent herself ever forty or fifty years as a succession of elderly cousins from Paris who just happen to inherit the estate, but she's done it for centuries. One old woman looks much like another, right?"

Amanda felt confused. She looked from one of them to the other, as if they'd started speaking colloquial Urdu. "Who are you talking about?"

"Madame Jolie Herbert. Didn't you ever meet her?" Liam asked. "Amazing woman. She's been in Provence for a thousand years or more, lives very quietly, knows how to take care of trouble." He shook his head in wonder. "Very formidable woman."

"Jolie?" The memory of a slender figure with delicate, precise sword technique burned in her mind -- along with the fact that she'd lost the fight, and the diamonds, and had been told firmly to leave. And that she'd gone, without even considering a second try. "Good God. You sent Nick to her?"

"I don't know," Liam said, "if he's actually there or not, but it's likely. Her manager's eldest son has gone off to university and he does need the help; it's the only place I know of in the region that's hiring in this season. And Nick did say he wanted to work for a mortal, which Theo certainly is."

"Has anyone told you you're wonderfully sneaky?" Amanda slid off her chair and wrapped Liam in a quick hug. "Liam, take the rest of the bottle. No, take the whole case of single-malt."

Methos nodded, smiling. "Better him than me. That woman is terrifying."

"She scares you?"

He nodded emphatically. "She sees everything, she says what she wishes, and she lives as she will. Fortunately, she's not the possessive type."

"You want to bet on that?" Amanda returned. "I didn't get even one tiny diamond from her house."

"Of course not," Liam told her. "She's the least bit sentimental about the things her first lover gave her, and that's reasonable."

Amanda shook her head, surprised. "Most of us aren't that sentimental."

"So speaks the woman who wears the last piece of the Methuselah Stone," Methos said to the ceiling.

"Touche. But that came from my teacher, not from a lover. There's something you're not telling me, isn't there?"

A slow smile lit Liam's face. "Remember your history, Amanda. When the great army faced the gates of Paris, and the oldest Immortal living then lost his head to the general -- who left his army, and his lady and became a monk. She belonged to Darius first. Now she belongs to herself."

***

After stopping at the bank, (business for her, a new account for him), the small clothing store (a new sun hat for her, work clothes for him), the barbershop (she chatted with a florist while his hair was trimmed) and various other businesses (for Theo, who'd given him scribbly handwritten notes for the shopkeepers), Jolie decided they needed something at the cafe on the square before starting back. They sat down at a table under a linden tree, and she ordered coffee and a plate of small pastries.

"What do you think of our village?" she asked him.

"Quiet. Peaceful. A good place to live." He looked at the children playing on the square, and the young women taking their babies for a walk.

"You would not have thought that during the War, when we were a conquered people." Jolie gestured with her cup. "We fought back, and endured, and survived. We hid Allied flyers who were shot down, and Jews, and the Underground." She took a drink, her eyes on him over the rim of the cup. "Survival skills, Nicholas. You are American; do you understand what I'm saying?"

He shook his head. "Are you speaking of us, or of everyone?"

"It's the same thing, in the end. One survives, or one does not. I myself had to disappear for several years; it's inconvenient to try to run a farm while living in a root cellar, but it was necessary. The Nazis would have been far too interested in a useless old woman who survived a firing squad." She pressed her lips together tightly. "Those days could come again -- not the Nazis, perhaps, but other stupid men like them. It is best to be prepared."

She saw that he looked grim again, as he'd looked while telling her his past in the car. "You know what it is to lose people, don't you?"

He had been staring at the children, and the young mothers. One woman, sitting on a park bench and playing with a laughing toddler, looked so much like Lauren. "Yes. My ex-wife died a couple of months ago -- killed by one of us, the one I killed." When he turned back to her, his eyes were bleak. "I took him out, with Amanda's sword. I thought the Quickening would kill her, it was so strong."

Jolie nodded soberly. "It is harder to watch than it is to endure, but sometimes the power comes as a lover and sometimes as an assault. There is no way to know which it will be." She pushed the pastries toward him, and he took one and put it on his saucer without looking at it. "But that's not all, is it?"

"No." The woman in the square hugged the toddler, who threw his arms around her neck. "I've always wanted to have a family. Children. Lauren had a miscarriage, early on, then ... nothing more. With the life we had -- an attorney and a cop -- it would have been very difficult."

Jolie sighed. "Yes. And now you think it's impossible, don't you?"

He raised startled eyes to meet hers. "Isn't it?"

She shrugged. "It all depends on how you define your family. I have had no children of this body, but I've loved and brought up hundreds of them. Even without a woman around, you could do this. Many of us have adopted the children after wars, after plague."

He couldn't help himself. "And they all die, and you live on. And people come after you with swords. I don't know if I could bring up a child in the midst of that."

"You will die, too, in the course of time. So will I. That is as it is, Nick. Would you rather concentrate on dying or living? If you really wish to die so soon, I will oblige you when we return, and then I will just inform Theo that you decided you didn't like farm work after all."

She meant what she said. If he asked her to take his life, she'd do it. The shock showed in his face. "If you were going to make me that offer, why go through all this?" He gestured toward the bank, the packages at their feet.

"Because I am a selfish old woman who would rather have a friend alive than dead. But if that is truly your wish -- after knowing as much as you can about who you are -- I have no right to deny you your choice." Jolie observed him shrewdly. "I see this isn't something your Amanda offered you, is it?"

"She's not my Amanda." It was a reflex. "And no, she didn't. She wanted me to live, regardless of what I wanted."

"Aha. So then you wanted to die, just to spite her? Tch." She shook her head at him. "I suppose it never occurred to you that you could do better by living than by dying. Just like a man."

He knew she was mocking him, gently, but it didn't matter. At least she was taking him seriously. "If I asked you to get out your sword, what would you do with the body?"

Jolie dismissed that with a wave of her hand. "The same thing I've done with the others. You're not the first to find me." She smiled, not without humor. "Let's just say that some of the grapes have more reason than others to give red wine."

"Remind me to stick to chablis," he replied, with his own smile.

Perhaps he'd wait just a while before becoming that much a part of the farm work....

***

Nick had gotten into the habit of showering, changing to his own clothes and walking around the farm at dusk, when the dampness heightened the musky, fruity scent of the vines and the night birds and small bats flew aerobatics after insects over the pond. Sometimes he accompanied Jolie on her walks; sometimes they only nodded to each other and went their separate ways.

A few days after the trip to town, he was trying to work out a stiff muscle in his leg as he walked around the pond. The movement wasn't helping. Sitting still wasn't helping, either.

Nick frowned. Immortality apparently didn't fix it all.

"Stretch it out again." Jolie had come up behind him, but he'd felt her buzz and ignored it. "You are so careless, Nicholas. What if I had been someone else?"

"Then my cares would be over."

"Lazy man." She stopped next to him and tapped his calf muscle with her cane. "Rub there as you extend your leg. See, I do know something of this."

He still didn't believe she could be a swordmaster, and she knew it. He continued to be polite, but skeptical, as if her life was only a tall tale and not its own part of history.

"Oh, you men are all alike. You need to see before you believe. Get up." She prodded him with the cane, less gently. "Come with me." She headed off toward her house more quickly than he'd seen her move yet, and he hobbled along after her, limping as the muscle eased.

She'd left the lights on when she went out this time, instead of leaving on only one to guide her steps. They weren't electric lights, he noticed, but kerosene lanterns and gas lights, and they lit the rooms more softly than electricity. Until now he'd only been in her sitting room and kitchen; now she took him through to a large room in the back of the house, half hidden under the trees. She had him bring in a lantern from the kitchen and set it on the table, which he did carefully as it was an old glass piece.

The sparkle from the walls caught his eye, and when he realized what he was looking at he couldn't help but gasp. Every kind of sword he'd ever heard of hung on the walls here, and several he'd never known existed.

Jolie closed the door carefully and shuttered the windows. She leaned her cane against the door, patting its rounded knob as if it were a faithful watchdog, and straightened. Without looking back she reached behind her right shoulder to take down a longsword and weigh it in her hand. She nodded slightly, made a few preliminary slashes with it, and came at him so quickly he could only stand and stare as the long blade fluttered past his ears, clipped a stray hair the village barber had missed, and settled to rest at the side of his neck, cold and exquisitely sharp.

She wasn't limping at all. Her gray eyes, the color of the steel blade, gazed motionlessly at him and the line of her mouth was absolutely straight.

"Choose."

Nick felt his breath rattling in his lungs and his blood rushing through his veins and arteries. He heard his own heartbeat, strong and steady, and knew he didn't want to hear it stop. He knew he had the skill -- cop skill -- to take down a small, frail-looking woman without effort, but he also knew that he'd be doing it in the afterlife if he tried it this time.

He bowed his head. "Teach me, please."

The tip slid under his chin and forced it back up. "Never take your eyes off your opponent. Do you understand?" He nodded, his eyes on her, and stood at attention as the sword moved on. He felt its passage as if it were writing in flame on his skin.

The blade slid past his neck, down to his shirt. The first button, sliced free, flew onto the table and came to rest by the lamp. The second followed it, and the third, until his chest was bare. The tip of the sword, so sharp he couldn't tell any more whether it was hot or cold, rested on his sternum, slid to one side, made a cut, and to the other to cut a little more. He felt the flicker of energy closing the wounds; it stung a little.

"This is one place you aim for, to slow your opponent. Straight in the heart. It will take longer to heal than other wounds, and weaken him." The sword tip flicked from one cut to the other. "I assume you know some anatomy; here are the main arteries and veins, under the surface. In this range you need only avoid a rib to hit something useful to you."

The sword trailed lower, catching in his sweatpants; the cord snapped and they dropped slowly to puddle around his knees. The steel tip touched his abdomen. "Here, here and here. The spleen, the liver, the intestines. These heal reasonably quickly but if you slice across --" a long light scratch appeared "you will keep him busy holding himself together, which causes distraction. Hold still."

She walked around him, and he turned his head to watch her. "I said hold still." The blade whipped down to sting the back of his thighs. "Here, the hamstring, and there, the achilles tendon. Tendons heal far more slowly than soft tissue during a fight; if you cut these you have his head."

He didn't dare to move. "May I pull my trousers back up?"

"No. Take off your clothes. They're too bulky, and you can't afford to have blood show on them." When he hesitated, she added grumpily, "Nicholas, I've already seen as much of you as there is to see, and I'll take it upon myself to make sure it's all still in working order when we're done."

He felt himself blushing, all the way to his briefs.

She turned aside as he undressed, reached into a drawer and brought out something that she tossed at him. He caught it in midair, which he could see pleased her. It was an athletic cup.

"To give you peace of mind. Not that you'd need it; it's not my practice to create eunuchs. Besides, I don't wish to have all your future lovers seek me out to complain if your performance is less than they expect."

"So far, I haven't had that difficulty," he shot back.

He put it on and felt far less naked, though it covered only one percent of his body. She could see the difference in his bearing, and smiled.

"Good. Now take down that sword -- the one above the broadaxe. No, not the scimitar, the next one." It was long and deadly looking, elegant in its plainness, with a gleaming edge and a simple crossbar to protect the hand at the hilt.

"Hold it thus." She came over and adjusted his hand on the grip. "What sort of sword did you hold before? Like that one? No wonder you had trouble -- your hands are large, and a claymore sized for Amanda's hand would be uncomfortable for you. What was she doing with a claymore anyway? Her taste used to be for the smallsword, or longsword."

Nick raised an eyebrow. "We'd had a bit of, um, difficulty on a case and we hadn't gotten her good sword back from the police yet."

Jolie rolled her eyes. "Never wear your good sword where others will get their hands on it. The oil in their skin will damage the blade and give you hours of work to sharpen it." She lit a second lamp and set it on a matching table on the other side of the narrow room. "You see that area marked on the floor? Your feet will stay within it until I tell you otherwise."

It looked little more than a meter square.

"Now, we begin. Stop my blade with the side of yours; do not stop it with the edge. I will begin slowly so you can see the various sorts of attacks."

He blocked perhaps a third of them on the first try, and did a little better when he realized she was purposely moving in a rhythm he could follow. Then she shifted to a different rhythm, and he had to figure that one out all over again. When he was out of breath, and felt the sting of a myriad of small cuts healing themselves, she raised her sword and backed off to drop the tip to the floor. She looked almost as cool and collected as she had when he met her by the pond.

"Hmph. It could be worse. You have strength and speed; you move reasonably well, considering. You were a boxer, no? I thought so. Also, you have played sports, but not, I think, football -- what you Americans call soccer. We will have to concentrate on your footwork." She walked around him, observing him dispassionately as if he were a statue. "Go get some sleep. Come back at dusk tomorrow."

He moved to gather up his clothes and put them back on, though he knew he'd feel overheated and have to face a cold shower when he reached his room. The soft cloth felt good, though, after the chill of air and the long narrow sting of healing cuts.

"And Nicholas --"

He looked up at her from the chair where he was putting on his shoes. "Yes, Madame?"

"Let someone else work by the threshing machine during the wheat harvest. Since you have asked me to be your teacher, I order you not to allow yourself to be killed until I give you leave." She looked down her long nose at him. "I do not want my work to be wasted."

"I'll try not to disappoint you." He ventured a smile, and felt more pleased than he expected when she returned it.

"See that you don't, or I'll have to keep you after class." His eyebrows rose at what he thought was a joke, but he realized she was serious. "And I could teach you a few things there as well, young rooster."

***

He worked hard during the day, and learned to fight in the evenings, and went to bed too tired to think of anything but sleep. Still, while he kept from thinking of Amanda during the day, his dreams had no restraint. After his eyes closed at night, he relived every moment he'd had with her, from the most casual glance during a case to the long hours of talking and relaxing, and, after the move to Paris, the lovemaking.

He never woke up in the middle of a dream. When he did awaken, and remembered that he too was now Immortal, it felt as if that were part of the dream as well.

***

After a month, he was beginning to understand the basics. It took that long to get the reflexes drilled into his muscles and bones, the motion that ran counter to what he knew as a boxer and fighter. He realized from the first that she was teaching him not competition fencing but full-scale combat, the movements that would keep him alive to fight another day. She never gave quarter, nor asked that it be given her; she played fair but she played tricky as well, unpredictable and lightning fast when she was annoyed at him, more slowly when he showed he was paying attention and following the moves, and then speeding up again as his competence improved.

"What about this?" he asked, demonstrating a lunge he'd thought about all day.

"It leaves you open here, and here." She smacked the sword down on his shoulder and side, lightly. "This is the counter move." Without visible effort she disarmed him and sent his blade to the floor. "Pick it up and try this instead." She showed him on the dressmaker's dummy they used for practice, because it could be made any height and width, and he repeated her action until he thought he had it clear. They worked that into the practice and continued for half an hour, after which she called for a break and he poured them both lemonade.

"A question, Madame."

"Yes?"

He was still naked, as the first time they'd fought, except for the jockstrap. "If you should miss, and catch this," he indicated his only piece of clothing, "it would grow back, wouldn't it?"

"Hmph. I didn't think you were that eager to find out."

"I'm not. Curiosity -- do amputated parts grow back on Immortals?"

"Ah. A theoretical question." She sat in a chair by the window and refastened a lock of silver hair that had come unpinned. "There are differing opinions on that, actually. I have not had to deal with the matter personally, but from what I understand the limb does regenerate. However, it may take decades. One young man, a few years ago, wore a claw after losing a hand; I don't think he lived long enough to find out. I didn't ask. We were not friends."

"Who took him out?"

"Duncan MacLeod, or so I heard. Not a bad idea, either; he was a vicious child, with neither remorse nor pity for his victims. Not a loss to our side at all."

"Have you met this Duncan MacLeod? I've heard differing things about him." He felt her opinion would be far less biased than Amanda's, at least.

"Many, many years ago, when he was a wild young Scotsman, only fifty or sixty years old. I think he must have improved by now and acquired manners -- and bathing -- or he'd not have lasted." She sipped lemonade and closed her eyes, reflecting on the past. "He was far too impulsive, prickly with pride and willing to jump into battle without thought. By now he'd be, oh, 400 years old or more, and beginning to find a little wisdom." She nodded judiciously. "These days, his name is well known; he has honor and considerable skill. I don't suggest that you challenge him."

"I wasn't planning on it." Nick shook his head, wondering. An unwashed thug didn't sound like anyone who would interest the exquisite Amanda he knew, let alone anyone she would defend with such passion when he suggested checking police records. "Amanda mentioned him once."

She nodded. "Not surprising. They have been friends for three centuries. Make no mistake; MacLeod's heart is usually in the right place, but it took a while for his head to learn to follow it wisely." She glanced at her student. "I think you are more of an adult already than he was for a century or more. But your ideas of honor are similar. This isn't entirely bad, within reason."

He wasn't sure if he liked the implied compliment, so he ignored it. "I still don't like or understand the Game," Nick complained. "What is the point of friendship or morality or honor -- providing I still have any -- when only one will survive?"

"Fool." She spoke calmly, but with force. "You talk as if it all had to be over by this time next week, or else. The Game has gone on for millennia. Nobody knows when the Gathering is over, any more than a country priest can tell you what melody the Last Trumpet will play. There may be many lifetimes before all is said and done, and in that time those who are good and honorable must stand against those who are evil. Nothing has ever required you to kill those you care about, only to fight those who threaten the people you love. How could it be any different?"

"I don't know," he said, still troubled. "Amanda said once that this is the time of the Gathering - -"

"And prophets have predicted the end of the world since long before I was born, and will go on doing so until long after I've died. I refuse to let that interfere with the way I live my life, and I suggest you do the same."

He was silent, the glass in his hand forgotten, as he listened to her.

"The problem with you, Nicholas, is that you think it is all or nothing -- an infinitely long life separated from normality, or a short life that is quiet -- black and white, instead of infinite shades of gray. It is the same as every other life -- it goes day by day, and nobody can predict what will happen on the morrow. Plan, yes; prepare, yes; but live your life as you will, also, or your planning and preparation are a waste and defend nothing."

She put her empty glass down by the pitcher and picked up her sword again. "Let's return to the defense against the upward thrust. You were quite shaky on that today."

***

The grapes ripened, their dense weight threatening to break the trellises that supported them. As the harvest grew near, the seasonal harvesters started on their rounds, reaching each estate to pick grapes from the heavy vines just when each variety of grapes reached ripeness.

Nick had felt a little nervous about the advent of the harvesters, but Jolie assured him he had nothing to fear. "I have found no potential Immortals among them for generations; they are the same families who have always worked here. But you may wish to be cautious during the festival afterward, though I doubt there's a need. An old friend or two may visit me; I would like to introduce you to them."

"Relatives?" He noticed Theo coming closer to ask him something.

She nodded. "How does it go, Theo? A good crop?"

"Yes, Madame. Excellent. We should have a wonderful vintage this year. Excuse me. Nicholas, but I require your help with the old press. It has jammed -- again."

They headed toward the barn where the great press stood, larger than a California hot tub, and Nick started to dismantle it again. The wooden press smelled fragrant with the grapes of more years than he wanted to think about. "How old is this thing, Theo?"

"As far as I know, it has always been here."

"Did it always stick like this?" Nick took off his shoes and climbed into the press to take out the last bolt and put pressure on the mechanism.

"Always." Theo handed him tools, and after fifteen minutes or so they managed to get the thing moving smoothly again. "One cannot use mechanical, modern oils on it, only olive oil, lest the wine be tainted. I think it just wants the attention once a year." He slapped the hand-carved wooden screw affectionately.

Nick got out of the press, grateful that it had been working on white grapes for the moment. "Madame said her relatives might visit during the festival."

"Oh? Let me see." Theo waved to Philippe, who sat on a pillar directing traffic for the harvest, and Philippe sent the next barrow of grapes in for pressing. "She has several nieces and nephews, even some great-nieces and great-nephews. Good people, for the most part." Theo leaned toward him and added quietly, "Perhaps some of them have a portrait in the attic like Dorian Gray, the same as Madame. But it is not my affair; if the women are always beautiful, a man should be thankful and not critical, no?"

Nick agreed with him, hoping privately that one of those beautiful nieces didn't have dandelion-puff hair and passionate dark eyes.

"I should tell you, I am very grateful that you arrived when you did," Theo told him in a normal voice. "The farm equipment has never run so well, nor the seasonal work gone so smoothly. And you have the gift of managing Madame; not all can do that. My Rene -- oh, he angered her before he went off to University."

"I wouldn't say I manage her, exactly, but we get along," Nick offered. "I like her."

"Good. Who am I to argue with success? Monsieur Corin at the estate across the valley is jealous, and may wish to hire you away from me. If he makes an offer, let me know what it is and I will match it."

"I'll keep that in mind."

"A good thing, for if you did go Madame would stop training you." Nick felt worried until he saw Theo's broad grin. "You must understand, Nicholas, Madame lives in the past. She has trained all of us to fight with swords and other antique weapons, everyone, even Marija, who would rather wield a saucepan than a saber." Theo shrugged comprehensively. "She is the owner; what she wishes is done. It does none of us harm, it keeps her entertained, and we would certainly be the best-defended estate in Provence if firearms should be outlawed."

"She's trained everyone?"

Theo nodded. "This is not well known, of course. We have our pride, and we are very discreet about it. But yes, she taught myself and my brothers, who live in Paris and doubtless have forgotten it all. She taught Marija and Rene, my eldest, and when Philippe reaches fifteen years she will begin to teach him. Do you like the work?"

Nick knew he didn't mean farming. "I'm starting to like it, a little."

"Good. That will keep her happy, and if she is happy things go so much more smoothly."

***

One day, two weeks earlier, before the harvesters arrived, Nick had found a novel he'd been looking for at the village bookstore. After supper he'd become so engrossed in reading that he failed to show up on time for practice. She had said nothing at the time, but had pushed him mercilessly that night and the next, forcing him to fight back with his full strength in order to stay alive. He didn't want to kill her or hurt her, but she gave him no choice as her blade cut to the bone again and again, and he fought back and struck her in the sword arm, slicing a muscle. There was no lemonade or theoretical discussion either night, and during the day between those nights she was impatient and displeased with everyone and everything.

At the end of the second night, when she backed up and dropped her sword, she said, "Do you understand why I've done this?"

He shook his head uncertainly. "Punishment?"

"That is for stupid children, which you are not, Nicholas, and well you know it. But you are careless. You begin to take me and this work for granted, and I will not have that!"

"I'm sorry, Madame."

"I don't want apologies. I don't want words from you, Nicholas. I want work, and understanding, and I want you to survive this Game long after I am gone." She threw him a towel. "Mop up your blood before you slip in it."

He did as she asked. "Are you angry with me?"

She shook her head, but he read disappointment and something else in her expression. "Your heart isn't in this, is it?"

He had to be honest. "No. But if I need to learn this to survive, I will learn it."

"You do well enough for a beginner, but you don't catch fire. Let yourself go, child. You will not be able to kill me, and anything else I will survive." She pointed at a different sword, longer and narrower, that gleamed on the wall. "Try this one."

He hung up the heavy weapon he'd been using and took down the one she indicated. It had a leather-wrapped grip, an intricate blade catcher and a narrower, sharper blade. "It's a beauty." It balanced in his hand as if it had been created for him.

Jolie watched him and nodded slowly, judiciously. "I thought so. I started you on the heavier sword to train your muscles. Oh, don't mistake me -- it's essential for you to learn to fight with whatever comes to hand, just as you had to learn to shoot both a pistol and a rifle when you were with the police. But for every Immortal there is one sword made to be his and his alone."

Nick swung and sliced the air, the blade whistling a little as it passed. He felt himself moving more quickly, more precisely, as if he'd gone from stumbling through Arthur Murray dance lessons to becoming Fred Astaire within seconds.

"Now, don't get a swelled head," Jolie warned. "It's not yours yet; I need to see if you deserve it first." She brought up her blade and charged him. "_En garde_!"

His footwork was still clumsy; he still dodged and ducked far more than he should have, but his blade met hers and deflected it, and he had that half-second's grace of a lighter blade than before, an improvement that gave him speed enough to challenge her back, if only a little.

They stopped this time with blades touching each other's hearts.

"Definitely better. I think we shall have to start practicing outdoors, on uneven ground. I want to see how that affects your footwork."

He nodded, still glowing with the pleasure of using the fine sword. "Who made this one? When?"

"A Spanish craftsman, in the 1500s or a little earlier, in Toledo. It belonged for a time to a guard for the Spanish royal family; it was willed to me by one of my students, who failed to return from a duel." She dug in a closet and found the scabbard, which she tossed to him. "Just in case you need it, for now. Tomorrow I will take your measurements and send for a proper swordcoat for you."

"I don't know what to say." He felt amazed that the sword felt so right for him. His service pistols, yes, that became part of him during his time on the force, but that was different. It was a machine. This sword all but breathed with him.

"Then say nothing. Take it back with you and practice in your room. We do not meet here during the harvest festival, as there are events that last all night and it would cause unnecessary comment."

***

The first day of the festival went well -- the only untoward incident was when young Philippe pushed a neighborhood bully into a wine vat and ended up there himself, only to have each of them hauled out one-handed by his father. Theo wasn't particularly angry at Philippe, but he yelled so it would make an impression. He sent Philippe off to wash and change his clothes, well aware that Philippe would wear his purple stains as medals of honor until they wore off.

Once Nick stopped worrying about dangerous unknown Immortals seeking him out, he started to enjoy the festival. Good food, the best wine, people to talk with, and pretty girls to flirt with during the dancing in the evening, when a local band played. Once he felt the slightest amount of buzz, and turned to see someone walking attentively with Jolie, who turned the visitor away from Nick's direction immediately. It was a woman with black hair, thinner and smaller than Amanda, who seemed to be hanging on Jolie's every word.

At the great festival dinner the next afternoon, when Jolie rose to offer the toast to thank the harvesters for their work, the dark-haired woman sat next to her, accompanied by a man whom Nick guessed to be her boyfriend or husband. Another man, further down the head table, bore an amazing resemblance to Peter Taff, but moved and acted completely differently.

Nick sat at one of the farthest outside tables, as he knew he might be called to leave at any time if Theo needed his help. He leaned over toward Philippe, whose hair still bore bluish streaks, and asked, "Are those Madame's relatives?"

The boy nodded. "The lady is Madame's niece, Gina, and her husband, Robert. They live in Normandy."

"What do you think of them?"

Philippe tilted his head. "He's very nice. He talks to me when he visits, and he's interested. She's nice, too, but she's not really interested in anyone but him, and Madame. Oh, and they brought their estate manager to talk to Papa. He's English but he's all right." He pointed at the man who looked like Peter.

"Are any more of Madame's relatives expected?"

The boy shrugged. "I think so. Usually there's one or two more. It's an old family, M'sieu Nicholas, with many branches, and sometimes the people who meet here haven't seen each other for a long time."

Nick nodded. "It's often that way with big families. I have cousins I haven't seen in years." He pushed his chair back from the table. "Will anyone mind if I take a break for a while?"

"No. They'll go on talking and making speeches for an hour," Philippe said with the resignation of long experience. "Papa shouldn't need you until after that."

"If he asks, I'm taking a walk." He smiled at Philippe, who smiled back and snagged the last cookie from the platter.

It wasn't hard to slip away for a while; he needed the solitude of the trees and the pond after dealing with the entire population of the village and the seasonal guests for most of the past week. If it had been late in the evening he would have gone swimming; as it was, he walked around the pond, through the small grove of fruit trees and beyond the stone wall, along the older entrance to the estate that was reserved now for farm vehicles. It was the way he himself had arrived, months earlier, but not the route that modern visitors usually took, so he felt comfortably alone.

Until he felt the buzz.

He didn't have his sword. He didn't even have a pistol with him; on the farm it wasn't necessary. But he picked up a long branch as a walking stick and hoped he wouldn't need it for anything else.

It wasn't a strong buzz, like Jolie's or Liam's, but quieter, more musical. It belonged to a small woman with faded light-brown hair, who sat on the stone fence and rubbed her swollen ankle. She looked up at him as he approached, and he saw that her eyes were green, framed by the beginning of middle-aged wrinkles. On the ground by the fence lay a large purse that looked heavy enough to be a small suitcase.

"Are you injured? May I help you?" He approached cautiously, hoping it wasn't a ruse. Once he saw her ankle, he was certain of it. "You look as if you've been walking for a while."

"Just a broken ankle. My car broke down in the village, but there's nobody there." She cocked her head at him. "I don't think we've met. My name's Mariellen Smithe."

"I'm Nicholas Wolfe." He had to remind himself to use his full name; to remember that he was in another life now, with different rules. But concern for the woman was stronger than caution. "You've walked -- from the village? That's nearly twelve kilometers."

"And I can tell you every rock in it," she said with a wry smile. "Here, it's almost well enough for me to walk on. In case you were about to ask, no, I'm not hunting for anything except a good meal and a place to sleep -- and some basic car repair."

"The village is empty because everyone's here for the harvest festival," Nick explained. "I'm sure there's plenty of food left, and we'll find you a spare bed." He grinned at her, liking her soft voice and mild British accent. "And I'm glad you're not a hunter; I left my sword at the house."

She smiled, acknowledging his point, as she slid down from her seat to test the ankle. It still looked uncomfortable. "Despite what they tell you, it still takes a while for things to heal completely, especially when they've been broken before. I've been told that if I took more heads that would change, but I don't want to make the experiment."

"Doesn't sound like fun. Here." He picked up her bag and handed her the walking stick. "Lean on this and on me, and we'll get back to the festival."

"You're fairly new here, aren't you?" she said as they went up the lane.

"Why does everyone ask me that?" He shook his head. "How do you tell?"

"Reactions. The complexity of your -- song."

"The buzz?"

"For lack of a better word. Oh, this looks so beautiful. I haven't been here in ages. Do you think they'd mind if I soak my ankle in the pond for a while?"

"Nobody will mind." She sat on the dock, took off her sturdy walking sandal and lowered her foot into the water, a blissful expression crossing her face. "How many of us have you met?"

"It's a little hard to tell before you change, isn't it?" He sat next to her on the dock. "Half a dozen or so that I know of for sure, maybe as many as two dozen or so if you include all the ones I'm not sure about."

"What do you think of us, overall?"

"Is that a trick question?"

"It's not meant to be," Mariellen said, a little apologetic. "It's just that I've been on this side of the border for so long that it's hard to remember what it was like when I first came over. Besides, you look like someone who has opinions, and I'm interested in what you think."

He smiled. "You could say that, about opinions. I think I don't like many of us very much, with some exceptions."

"Fair enough. You seem to be handling it much more calmly than I did. I had hysterics for a month. How did it happen with you?"

"I was dying of slow poison, and my -- friend -- knew I'd be Immortal if I died violently, so she shot me."

"It must have been a shock."

Nick nodded. "I was so angry at her taking away my choice that I walked off and left her." He paused, and added, "I wish I knew how she was doing." He let that pass. "Would you like to come up to the house, and we'll find you a place to stay?"

She noticed his change of subject. "That would be great. I'm getting very hungry."

Sandal on, and purse in hand, she walked with Nick toward the main villa. Nick spied Theo and waved him over, but before he could say a word Theo came up to Mariellen, opened his arms and wrapped her in a bear hug. "Where did you find her, Nicholas? Madame will be so surprised!"

"Actually, don't tell Jolie, but I got lost and my car broke down. I walked here from the village."

"Your car is there? We will take care of it." Theo turned and roared, "Philippe! Go tell Madame that Mademoiselle Smithe is here." He tucked Mariellen's hand through his arm and led her off, leaving Nick to follow along with her bag, shaking his head.

Jolie met them at the edge of the porch. "Mariellen! Dear girl, I didn't think I'd see you at all this year." She gave the newcomer a hug, as she beamed from ear to ear. "You've met my new student?" Jolie waved a hand at Nick.

"Yes, he brought me in. It's good to know you're Madame's student. I was terrified of her when she taught me; does she frighten you too?"

Plainly, no secrets were hidden here. "All the time," Nick said, "but I try not to let it get me down."

"He's learning," Jolie told her. "Come, Robert and Gina are here, and they'll want to see you. You come along too, Nicholas, unless you have duties elsewhere."

He couldn't see a way around this, so he acquiesced gracefully and followed them to a table under the plane trees, shaded and cool, where the others chatted and waited for Jolie to return. This wasn't the banquet table of an hour earlier; the larger tables in the plaza had been cleared away for dancing. This was a grouping of small tables and chairs in the garden between the larger villa and Jolie's house, filled with people he hadn't met -- all of whom were sounding different noises in his mind, some musical and some less so. They all looked up from their conversation when Jolie brought him forward.

"I think some of you may know each other, but I'd like to introduce my friend Mariellen Smithe, and my new student, Nicholas Wolfe."

He would have chosen a less public way to meet so many other Immortals, but he smiled and shook hands as he was introduced to them: Robert and Gina de Vallincourt, their estate manager Peter Garnische. Two more figures, standing behind them, came forward, and he felt his composure slipping.

"Ah, yes, another friend who arrived while you were out walking, Nicholas. May I introduce my friend Adam Pierson, and his companion, Michelle Webster?"

Adam's expression was bland as he shook hands. Michelle looked solemn and gave him her hand and he brought it to his lips, smiling back at her in a way that would have made her heart flutter if she didn't know he was just flirting.

"Charmed to see you again, brat," he said under his breath. He turned to Jolie, who was watching this with amusement. "Actually, we've met before, in Paris."

"Ah, that's right, you did say you used to live in Paris." Jolie noted shrewdly that he had been careful not to mention Amanda; that must still sting him. Adam appeared to be amused rather than annoyed by her student's gallantry; perhaps young Adam had grown up a bit more as well in the last two decades. "Come, join us for some of the estate's best wine." She picked up a longstemmed goblet. "Robert, if you would do the honors?"

"Of course, Jolie." Robert poured wine for all of them, and waited until they had found places to sit before tasting it. "Oh, this is superb. A little more acidic than the '26, but I think it will mellow well."

"Robert, that _is_ the '26," Gina told him affectionately. "The other bottle is the '59, and the third is the '72. "

He blinked. "So it is, my love. You're right."

Gina beamed. She winked at Michelle. "You know the secret to handling men like this? Always know more than they do!"

Michelle leaned toward her and stage-whispered, "But don't let them know it most of the time."

"I think we're being out-maneuvered," Adam said to Robert. "What do you intend to do about it?"

"Absolutely nothing," Robert told him. "The last time she got upset we both almost lost our heads."

Nick sipped his wine -- it was excellent, whichever vintage it was -- and watched the Immortals playing with each other in a way he hadn't thought would be possible. "Both of you?"

"Oh, that was all Duncan's fault!" Gina pouted. "Duncan as marriage counselor. You should have known better, Robert."

"No," Adam put in, "I should have known better than to get involved with a pair of lovers like you two. You're both impossible." He turned in an aside to Nick, "Duncan decided that Robert had to fight this great unknown Immortal to get Gina's attention back. Now, they'd only been married for 290 years at this point --"

"No, 299 years." Gina said.

"-- and she said she didn't want to get remarried for the third time --"

"Every hundred years..."

"So, anyway, there I am dueling with Robert with this very careful choreography -- purely for show -- and Gina charges in and nearly takes my head off with her first stroke. Terrifying woman!" He raised his glass to the terrifying woman, who twinkled at him.

"I didn't kill you on the barge, later, because you talk faster than you fight," Gina told him.

"Good thing," Michelle said. "He's come in handy a few times since then."

"A few times?" Adam's eyebrows rose. "Only a few?"

"A few. Some of the time you're completely obnoxious," Michelle told him.

Adam drank his wine, a peaceful expression on his face. "Good to know I haven't lost my touch." He finished his glass, rinsed it with water from a pitcher, then poured himself some of the next bottle. "Hmm. More complex aroma, with a bit of elderberry?"

"I'm afraid we can't compete with your nose," Mariellen said quietly, with a wicked grin. Adam turned aside to show them all his profile, with the elegant long nose that looked as sharp as a blade, and they all laughed.

"It's not the size of the nose, it's what you do with it," Jolie pointed out, her own aristocratic nose just a bit in the air. "That's why I invite you, Adam, you have the most knowledgable nose I've found in years. You could be in charge of any winery you wished in the world, if you wanted the job."

Adam shrugged. "I hate to turn something I like into something I have to do for a living." He reached for the bottle. "More for you, Mariellen?"

As the woman reached her glass out toward Adam, Nick felt the pieces of a puzzle start to fall into place in his mind. When Michelle had run to Amanda for help, Adam -- whom he knew better as Peter Taff or Methos -- had given Amanda the phone number for Joe Dawson, which he said he'd had from Mariellen, Joe's lover. He'd discovered since then that Dawson wasn't just any watcher, but regional director for North America and considered a radical and a rebel by his organization for consorting with Immortals rather than keeping the traditional hands-off approach.

And this Mariellen, the small woman he'd helped here, was Joe's lover, probably part of the Watcher organization -- and twin sister to Millie, Peter Taff's ex-lover, whom he'd met and liked very much for her honesty and perceptiveness, as well as for her honor and fighting ability. He wasn't sure how far he would have been willing to trust someone with that close a connection to either Joe or the Watchers before he'd seen Methos's reaction to her.

Nick leaned over toward Mariellen and said, "I think I've met your sister, several months ago in Paris."

"Oh, how was she? She phones, but she doesn't come to visit very often." Mariellen looked eagerly at him. "How did she look?"

"Busy, involved, happy, healthy. I worked with her very briefly when she was recovering a Fabergé egg back from thieves, to return to its owners."

"She succeeded, of course."

"Of course. She's very well organized."

"Stealing a Fabergé egg? That sounds more like Amanda," Gina interjected. "What's Amanda up to these days?"

Nick said nothing. Without hesitating, Adam said, "She's been running a club, and a sort of small detective bureau for the last year or so, but she was talking about traveling again when I saw her last week. Her partner left her, and she isn't sure if she wants to continue the business alone."

"That's too bad," Robert said. "Amanda does such amazing things. She makes me feel that I live a boring life by comparison."

"You're bored, Robert? Oh, no! Now I'll have to do something about that," Gina said.

As Robert gracefully backed off that verbal tree limb, Jolie gestured to someone who brought in a platter of pastries and cookies and left. She took an almond cookie, passed the platter on to Peter Garnische, and started to ask him what sort of things he was doing at the estate. This distracted Robert, who jumped into the diversion to describe to Jolie a few of the changes he was considering for the vineyard he'd bought in the Lorraine. Gina and Michelle moved closer and started to talk about fashion, and Nick found himself with Adam, neither of them saying much.

"She's giving up the club and the business?" he asked, under cover of the conversations around him.

Adam nodded. "She kept that going for you, Nick."

"For me?"

"Oh, given the opportunity she'll make a living doing whatever comes to hand, but she really enjoyed working with you. It broke her heart when you left."

Nick toyed with his glass. "Whatever I say, I'll be wrong."

"Not true," Adam told him, refilling his own glass and Nick's from a handy bottle. "Your choices are your own; you needn't justify anything to me or anyone else."

"I still wish I'd known ahead of time."

Adam sighed. "Think how your life would have changed if you'd known. You'd take too many chances; you'd probably have interfered more between Amanda and those she fought. And if you had, you wouldn't be here now; newborn Immortals are extremely vulnerable." He drained his glass. "Amanda could have told you when you were being poisoned -- but she thought you'd guessed because she kept telling you that you'd live. She had no idea you'd react so strongly to what she considered the equivalent of battlefield surgery."

"Battlefield surgery?"

Adam nodded. "You've read history. Think about how battlefields used to be before modern medicine, when the first priority for a battlefield surgeon was to pull out bullets, cut off wounded limbs, and keep the soldier alive -- and deal with the results of surgery later on, whether that meant learning to live without legs or arms." He gazed past Nick at the trees and the evening sky, then back to him. "Some couldn't; the suicide rate after a war among disabled veterans is immense, and hidden. Amanda had to keep you alive; she knew what happened after that wouldn't be something she could control."

The conversation around them ebbed and rose, ignoring them.

"How did you feel when it happened to you?" Nick asked.

"Amazed. Grateful. Blessed by the gods. I got up from among the dead, followed the battle that had moved on and killed the man who'd tortured and slain me in the first place. Then I kept on killing for a while. Quite a while." Adam shrugged. "I wasn't a nice boy then; I've changed a lot."

"Times were different," Nick offered.

Adam nodded. "That was my time, and my reaction. This is your time. Are you really that angry with Amanda? Because I'll tell you something -- I've known Amanda for six centuries, and I've never seen her like this. Not even MacLeod has had her this upset, and he's done some truly stupid things around her. But half the time he's seen himself as her rescuer, and that's always a problem."

Nick shook his head. "I've never thought she needed rescuing. Help, yes. Occasionally a good scolding. But we were equals, with different skills -- she gave the same back to me."

"Ah. That's the difference." Adam looked him in the eye. "You're the only one who's been her equal in centuries, the only one she's let that far inside her life. Other than Lucy, as far as I know, you were the only mortal she truly trusted. You were her other self, and now you're gone."

***

Her other self. He'd never considered their relationship in that way.

She'd been his partner, sometimes in bed as well as in the escapades she dragged him into. They'd worked together, complementing each other well. They'd begun to build a life together based on sharing responsibility and on honesty as far as possible.

He'd told her more about himself than he'd ever intended, partly because she was there, listening, when he let himself open up, and partly because she'd had the experience to understand what he said even when the words didn't work right. She'd been there for him when his partner on the force was murdered; she'd been there when he'd lost Lauren. Lauren's return and death had opened up all the old wounds that hadn't quite had time to heal since the divorce: wanting a good, solid, loving relationship; wanting to see his own children grow up; wanting a safe and ordinary life.

And there she'd been, Amanda, to offer him a relationship of total equality, as fighting partners, lovers, something he'd never imagined he'd find. He still wanted children; that yearning wouldn't go away for a long time, he knew. But a safe and ordinary life seemed to be something destined for other people. Even if he'd never met Amanda, he'd still be living in the borderlands between good and evil, between right and wrong, between life-giving and death-dealing.

She'd given him space. She hadn't crowded him or made him feel awkward. She'd left him room to think, to move, to do what he wanted, and she'd accepted the same from him -- and gradually they'd grown toward each other. When he'd thought she was dead, his only goal was to find her killer in Paris, knowing it would probably cost him his life.

Perhaps he was her other self, the self she'd protected until his rebirth. She'd tried to shelter him, to keep him safe; she'd gone up alone against killers far more experienced than she was, and tried to keep him uninvolved.

All his life he'd felt alone inside. Perhaps she was the one he'd sought all his life, the only one who would love him for what he was and not for what he could have been in other circumstances.

***

"You're upset," Mariellen said quietly. The group under the trees had broken up hours ago when the dancing started. Most of them were out on the floor, dancing to a local band. Nick hadn't felt like dancing, but he stood at the side and watched.

He nodded. "Adam said Amanda's in bad shape. I feel like I'm responsible."

"You know you're not. How she behaves is her own business."

"Yes, but..."

"What do you want to do?"

He sighed. "I can't leave here yet. I'm still too much of a beginner. But I want to know she's all right."

Mariellen watched as Adam twirled Michelle, caught her again and went with her into a dip. "I think if you didn't go alone Jolie would not mind."

"Is this an offer from an Immortal or from a Watcher?" He felt her stiffen. "It was something Adam said in Paris. I haven't told anyone."

"Thank you. As it happens, I'm on my own right now." Her mouth twisted wryly. "You're not the only one whose affairs are on the rocks."

"I'm sorry."

"So am I." She shook her head. "Stubborn man. Thinks he's got to be guardian angel and designated worrier for everyone he meets."

"Dawson or MacLeod?"

"Joe Dawson. Actually, I think he picked it up from Duncan, but he takes it to a whole new level. Would you say I'm either helpless or incapable?" Nick shook his head. "Thank you. At least one stubborn man in the world has sense."

Nick grinned, in spite of himself. "How do you know I'm stubborn?"

"You'd never last a day with Jolie otherwise."

He laughed at the truth in her words, and she joined him.

Robert and Gina danced into the middle of the floor and started to tango. The emotional heat they created burned so intensely that Nick thought he could see it crackling up from their bodies.

"When?"

"As soon as harvest's over. I'll ask Madame Jolie for a few days off."

"I don't think Amanda will do anything that rash; we should have a day or two." Mariellen nodded. "You'll have to keep up your training, you know, or you'll lose it. I'd work with you, but I'll need to borrow a sword from Jolie."

"You don't have a sword?" Nick turned to stare at her.

"I have a sword, but I can't use it for sparring. It's a very long story." She gauged his reaction. "Maybe I'll tell you someday."

Adam came toward them with Michelle. "You two aren't dancing. Milady, if you'll do me the honor?" The music changed to something lighter, less intense. He bowed to Mariellen, who took his hand and went out onto the dance floor. Nick glanced at Michelle, and she nodded and slipped into his arms.

"How are you, Nick? I've been worried." She tipped her head back so her cornflower eyes met his. "It's a hard thing to adjust to."

His mouth twisted. "I've been better, but it's all right. I wish someone had told me."

"Same here. It's such a shock when everything changes." She put her head on his shoulder and they moved gently around the dance floor. "Are you going to go see Amanda?"

"I think so."

"Good. She refused to see me."

"She what?" He stiffened in shock and stopped dancing. She moved in his arms, just a little, to remind him to keep going as they were in public. "Why?"

"Adam -- I wish he'd settle on a name -- said she refuses to see people when she's about to do something she thinks they won't like."

"Because we'd talk her out of it?"

"Probably. He had to chase her down to talk with her before we came here."

"What's she up to?"

"I don't know. It's not just something confidential; she'd at least be able to tell me something along the edges of that." She frowned. "I hate uncertainty about my friends."

"So do I. But you're happy now?"

She nodded. "I'm starting classes at the Sorbonne in architecture, design and photography next week. I've got my own apartment -- my own turf -- and I have Adam Whatshisname. It's almost too much."

"It's what you deserve," Nick told her.

"If -- if you need me, if I can help --"

"I'll call you. I promise."

***

"Let me guess -- you need to go to Paris." Jolie drew a deep breath. "How long will you be gone?"

"I don't know. I don't know what I'll find when I get to Paris."

The old woman sighed. "I suppose it would be interfering for me to suggest that you not go alone?"

"I'm going with him," Mariellen said, walking into Jolie's training room. "May I borrow a practice sword?"

"You still carry the Great One? Of course. Take what you will." Jolie searched the walls, pointed at a weapon with her stick. "That one may be the right size for you."

Nick took it down and handed it to Mariellen, who moved it in a figure-eight and nodded her thanks. She looked from Nick to Jolie and left, tucking the sword into the side of her sweater so that it disappeared.

"Nicholas. You still have much to learn."

"I know it, Jolie." His expression was rueful. "I don't think it will be easy."

"Stop putting yourself down. You're good, for a beginner, but you need to get past both 'good' and 'beginner'." Jolie gazed at the tall American she'd begun to teach. "And you need to learn more about Immortal manners. Mariellen will help; things may have changed since my time in the Game."

"I'll be back --"

She touched her fingers to his lips. "Do not make promises to an old woman. Come back if you can; you have a place here, ready for you. You need not wander the world alone. But if you choose not to return, at least let me know you still live."

He wrapped his hand around hers and kissed her fingertips before she could pull them away. "I will let you know. One way or another."

"When do you leave?"

"As soon as Mariellen's car is repaired. Tomorrow, if possible. The next day."

Jolie nodded. "May all that is good go with you. May you find what you hope to find." She put aside the cane, drew herself up to her full height and took both his hands in hers. "Nicholas, I won't lie to you; you've been here only a short time but you are dear to me. But I want you to be realistic. Immortality is precious, but it isn't a guarantee from one moment to the next. If you are in serious trouble, please call. I may live quietly, but I still have influence in unexpected places." She drew his head down and kissed his cheek. "Now go, child."

He went, without looking back, knowing she was watching him go. He waited until he was outside to wipe the lone tear from his cheek.

***

Mariellen drove with the steadfast concentration of someone who didn't really like speed. Nick offered to take over from her, and she finally agreed. "I'll navigate; I know the roads, but they keep changing the names and numbers."

"Right." He moved the drivers' seat back, and cranked the engine up to a good cruising speed. "We should be there in five hours."

"I can recall when it took more than a week to make this trip," Mariellen said, watching the landscape whir past them.

"Do you ever wish that time would come again?" he asked.

"Oh, no, Nick. Never. I'd only want to go back to the first era of hot baths and indoor plumbing."

"Nineteenth century?"

"No, the Romans. They even put good artwork in the bathrooms so the bathers would have interesting things to look at."

***

They ate a bag lunch in the car and kept going. When they stopped for dinner at an inn that Mariellen suggested, just off the main road, Nick scanned the pages of _Le Monde_ for signs of any Immortals' activity, but found nothing unusual. "I don't know enough," he admitted. "I'm not sure what to look for."

"Let me take a look." He passed the paper across the table to Mariellen. "It takes a little knowledge of who's in the neighborhood, of course." She shook her head. "I don't see anything either. In fact, it's remarkably quiet for a change."

"No strange occurrences, no power outages, no explosions."

She nodded. "Nothing for me to do."

"So you're still with the organization?" He hesitated to name the Watchers in public, something he'd learned from Amanda, as not all Watchers were friendly to those they observed. "Is that how you met Joe?"

"I was assigned to Amanda, first. This was several years ago, when she was in Seacouver." Mariellen finished the last bite of creme caramel and sat back in her chair. "Then I swapped assignments with someone who'd been following Richie Ryan; he'd found her out and they'd fallen in love. It didn't last long; he went back to Michelle in France, and things were fairly easy until he died two years ago." She gave him one of her rare smiles. "Following someone like Richie is fun; I could always pose as the mother of one of his friends, or an aunt, if anyone grew curious. And he was growing into such a good man. Duncan did a fine job with him."

"What does MacLeod have to do with him?" Nick was starting to feel that he couldn't move without tripping over this MacLeod character.

"Richie broke into the antique shop Duncan ran, and Duncan caught him, decided the boy needed a better home than the streets, and took him in. He lived with Duncan for more than a year, then had his first death, and stayed on as his student for a while longer." She caught his expression. "Amanda didn't tell you this, I gather."

"Amanda didn't tell me much, a lot of the time."

"She may have felt you didn't need to know; we don't talk about each other much to outsiders."

He sighed; this 'outsider' thing was getting old, fast. "So, who are you assigned to now?"

"I don't know." She looked away. "That's one of the things we were arguing about, Joe and I. Theoretically, I'm still a member, and unless I want to go very underground I will have to continue being one for a while; my real life's not on the books any more than Adam's is, and I don't want it there either. But I'm tired of sitting on the sidelines watching life go past me, Nick -- so I walked."

"Dawson must be having a cow."

She giggled, unexpectedly, and her eyes flashed. "Oh, not just one cow, but a whole herd of aurochs, horns and all. You know, in all the time I've been alive you'd think that humanity had evolved emotionally, but it's not true. Joe's just like one of the high priests I knew on Mona; fuss, fuss, fuss all the time and a fair amount of temper when you don't listen to him."

"Mona? I should know that name."

Her face changed, and her eyes went darker, a vivid bright green. "Mona was the sacred isle of druids; all who lived there were slain by the Romans in retaliation for Boudicca's assault on Londinium, which was itself a response to Roman force. I was fortunate not to be beheaded; I survived, and went to Ireland for a couple hundred years, until it was safe again."

Her eyes paled to their usual peridot as he watched; it was as if he'd seen another being within the quiet Mariellen, one neither quiet nor safe. He sat very still, absorbing this, his own eyes darkening. She glanced up at him and flushed.

"I'm sorry; I don't generally turn into my other self unless there's something grievously wrong. I hope I didn't --"

"It's all right, Mariellen." Nick leaned forward and gave her a smile. "In fact, it's a bit comforting to know."

After dinner, Mariellen persuaded the owner of the inn to let them use an empty room in one of his barns as an exercise room. They fought there for an hour, and at the end of it he felt exhausted and exhilarated. Mariellen fought a conservative defense and a wild, unpredictable offense that he had trouble blocking, but she kept him at it until he found the moves and felt comfortable with them.

"You need to fight someone taller for a while," she told him. "Between Jolie and me, you've only fought shorter opponents, and you need the variation."

"When we find Amanda, she'll probably want to take a piece out of me; hand her a sword," Nick replied.

***

They reached the outskirts of Paris at midnight the next day, and an hour later passed Notre Dame and the barge, lying dark against the pewter waters of the Seine. Up the hill and around the curves, and over several blocks to the side -- and Nick shut off the engine in front of what had been the club.

Flames poured from the windows and firefighters on ladders chopped holes in the roof to relieve the pressure within the building.

"She can't be dead," Nick told himself aloud.

"She probably isn't. This looks like a good scheme for reinventing oneself," Mariellen observed.

He was out of the car and talking to the fire chief before she could say more. In short order he learned that two women had been seen at the windows on the second floor as the fire was breaking out, and one of them had made it down to safety. The fire chief nodded toward a small figure wrapped in an emergency blanket who sat on the park bench across the street, out of the way of equipment and hoses, watching the building. Mariellen recognized her as Lucy, Amanda's sometime companion, who had lived with her in Toronto.

"Lucy -- you're all right?" Nick put an arm around the small woman.

"Oh, Nick, I'm so glad to see you. I'm so glad you're all right." She looked past Nick. "Is this -- Mariellen?"

"Lucy, what happened?" Mariellen asked.

"I don't really know. The club had closed, and Amanda thought she smelled smoke. She went downstairs, and came back up quickly and got me out -- then she went back in..."

"She'll be all right," Mariellen said.

"Which door did she go in through?" Nick asked urgently. Lucy pointed to the small side door leading to the basement. "I think I know where she went. There's holy ground down in the sewers there, the Crypt de Ste. Marie."

Lucy looked tired and deflated. "Why would she go to ground now? Nothing was happening."

"I'm not sure," he said. With Amanda, something always happened.

The flames were out now, and the charring had damaged only the upper two stories. Nick spoke to the fire chief, who nodded and handed him a protective coat, helmet and torch, and let him go off with two other firefighters into the building. They entered through the door Lucy had pointed to, and disappeared.

"Will he be all right?" Lucy worried. "Amanda was so -- different. Upset. Not herself."

"He's one of us now," Mariellen told her. "And he didn't take the change well at all."

"So that's what it is. You know, I've thought for a while that Immortality brings as many problems as regular life does; they're just different problems."

"You're so right." Mariellen spared another glance for the house, then turned back to concentrate on Lucy. "Do you have somewhere to go? We need to get you indoors, with a hot cup of tea and a place to sleep."

Lucy shook her head. "Whatever I brought is upstairs. Was upstairs."

"Let me think a minute." Mariellen saw Nick emerge from the house, and hand the equipment back to the firefighters. "We've got to get Lucy inside; she's chilled."

Nick held up a key. "We'll go to the barge; we won't even have to pick the lock."

"Was she --"

"I think she's fine, Lucy. I checked the basement, and the door to the sewers was unlocked. She knows her way around; she'll find us if she wants to." Nick led her to the car. "The fire chief agreed that since I'm the building manager I can go through it with him tomorrow. He'll show me how the fire started, and I'll have a better idea what's going on."

***

The barge was definitely a good idea. Nick made hot tea for Lucy while Mariellen scrambled through the clothes closet and the bureau for something that would fit her. She emerged with a long loose grayblue sweater that would work as a dress for Lucy, and, after checking the back of the last drawer on the left, a lightweight knitted skirt as well.

"I thought this would be here," she murmured.

"What?"

"Oh, something my sister must have left with him back when they were together. She really doesn't care that much about clothes, so she didn't go back for it when they split up." Mariellen held it up. "It's larger than what Michelle would wear -- what do you think, Lucy?"

"I think I'm going to take a shower and go to bed and think about it tomorrow." Lucy smiled wearily up at Nick. "It's been a long day."

"You two can share the bed; I'll take the couch." He stretched out on the eight-foot leather couch, and found himself yawning. Before he could finish thinking about the fire, he was asleep.

***

"That went well enough," Millie said, taking a last look at the scorched building as the early dawn lit the city. Amanda, standing next to her by the motorbike, nodded slowly. "I know, you liked that place, didn't you?"

"It's not the place, Millie. I miss Nick. Oh damn," Amanda said, sadness overtaking her, "it's the place as well. A lot of good memories there."

"I hope he doesn't decide to follow us. This jaunt is too dangerous for a newcomer." Millie adjusted her goggles and started the bike. Amanda settled herself on the buddy seat and they swept down the narrow road and over the bridge by Notre Dame on their way out of Paris.

**Author's Note:**

> Originally, this was the first of several Nick-as-Immortal stories, but the notes for the others were lost in a computer crash in 2000. So, this is it.


End file.
